


There were none returning

by gardnerhill



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (1984 TV)
Genre: Challenge Response, Community: watsons_woes, Gen, Reichenbach Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 06:28:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2458241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if he had?</p>
            </blockquote>





	There were none returning

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=watsons_woes)[](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=watsons_woes)**watsons_woes** Challenge 022, "Turn Left" (one decision, however small, can completely change the future into something totally different from what was originally intended).

**The London Times, 10 May 1891:**

**TRAGIC DEATH AT THE REICHENBACH. –** The Times has the sorrowful duty of informing its readers that the celebrated inhabitants of Baker Street, Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, have both appeared to have lost their lives whilst on holiday in Switzerland, along with an unknown third Englishman.

The story emerges based on the eyewitness account of a Mr. Peter Steiler, proprietor of a hostelry situated near Reichenbach Falls in Meirengen, and corroborated by Herr Falken, the local chief of police. According to Mr. Steiler, the two men had set out for Rosenlaui when a third Englishman had arrived at Steiler's establishment with a message for Dr. Watson, pressing the urgency of it, before heading in their direction with the aim of intercepting the man himself. The rocky terrain must have prevented the men from crossing paths as Watson returned to the hostel, and upon learning of the man Watson retraced his steps immediately with all speed. That was the last seen of any of the men.

Because of Dr. Watson's highly agitated state and refusal to stop and rest, and due to the growing lateness of the hour which would preclude the man reaching Rosenlaui in safe daylight, Steiler sent for the police and followed on the same path. At the scenic Reichenbach Falls evidence in tragic abundance indicated that two of the men had engaged in a violent altercation at the very precipice, from which none have escaped to tell the tale; not one set of footprints left the scene. Owing to this evidence, it is more than likely that the unknown third party was some enemy of the celebrated detective who had sought to settle a personal score. Watson's own footsteps end at a craggy portion of the overhang; it is believed that he fell whilst attempting to rescue his colleague.

There is no safe way to plumb the depths at the base of the cataract, and so no way to retrieve any of the three bodies. Only two alpenstocks and a silver cigarette-case remain of England's foremost champion of the law and his stalwart companion and biographer; and what truly happened at Reichenbach Falls will forever remain the greatest mystery of Sherlock Holmes.

***

"I should not have done it," Holmes snapped, putting the finishing touches on the bandage across the other man's shoulders. "I should have remained mute, and faced him on my own."

"And if you had _not_ shouted my name in response to my cries," Watson retorted, wincing as he resettled his back against the wooden wall of the deserted barn, "and left me to mourn your presumed death in London, I would never have forgiven you for it. Shamming mortal illness for a few days to catch a disease specialist is one thing, Holmes – but if you were to sham your very death for a prolonged time to me? If anything could conspire to sunder our association, old man, it would be that."

"You very nearly fell to your own very real death scrambling to join me!" Holmes peered at the torn and stained jacket in his hands against the fickle moonlight. "Pah, I'll mend this for you at first light tomorrow."

"Note that it was my shot at your assailant that dissuaded him from hurling stones on our heads; had you been alone you might very well have joined the Professor in that cauldron. I'm only sorry I didn't kill the man." Watson grunted at the pain of the long scrape across his shoulder – and it _would_ be the wounded one – from the long slide that had nearly pitched him into the falls. He'd caught the path with his feet – just – and had reached for the hand extended by the white-faced man ensconced under a rocky overhang. Now Watson smiled ruefully both at the pain and at the loud rumble from his stomach. "Mouldy straw makes a better bed than a meal, I'm afraid. There might be a few mummified turnips or carrots in the byre, so there is our breakfast assured."

"And now you too are a fugitive." Holmes drew up his knees and rested his elbows on them, for all the world as if he sat in his chair at Baker Street instead of in a corner of a decrepit farm building that smelt of cows. "I freely chose this, but my sentimentality has condemned you to this life as well. Further, this will throw poor Mrs Watson into undeserved mourning as a widow."

Watson nodded, that knowledge lying like a lump of lead in his breast and an iron claw at his throat. "Yes. Do not think I did not make my own calculations when I heard my name and saw you in the underhang. I do not have your gift of penetration, old fellow, but a soldier knows a bivouac when he sees one. Hiding, I said to myself, from someone as deadly as the Professor or even worse. And clear as day I saw the two paths from Reichenbach for me: Go home and leave you to your fate out in the world, alone – and remain in mute seclusion as if in grief rather than attempt dissembling – or take up arms and follow you into the breach, and see this work done to its conclusion.

"My Mary is strong and brave – as she weathered the loss of her father so too will she endure the loss of her husband. Thanks to your work I have more than the proceeds of a wound pension or a small practice with which to keep her comfortable."

"The Professor was a spider, Watson," Holmes said tightly. "His threads are many and long, scattered over the known world. It will take months to find and rip them out, even though we travel under the freedom of dead men. Perhaps even years."

Silence from Watson's corner of the barn. A long steady breath. "How many months if you do this alone, versus how many if we are together?"

An equal and opposite silence from Holmes' dark wall. "More," he finally said.

"Then there is your answer."

Holmes sank back against the roughly whitewashed wall, and felt relief seep into every bone and nerve. This was something he had had no right to ask – for which he had cursed himself the moment he'd listened to his heart and not his head, and shouted Watson's name across the cataract to silence the despairing cries of his friend. Together, they'd grimly huddled and watched Peter Steiler and the police trample the crime scene to uselessness (Holmes' dour amusement at the inept investigation spoilt by the sight of the torn and bleeding gash across Watson's shoulder). "I feel as if I shall need your companionship in this exile, dear fellow."

"Not exile. A commission, and my chance to finally prove myself a soldier. I had barely set foot in Afghanistan before Maiwand, and immediately came home a broken invalid. Here, now – I can finally do the work for which I was trained. The sooner we begin the sooner we end this; I come home to dry my girl's eyes, and Sherlock Holmes and London are reunited once again."

A dry snort of amusement. "I think that name should remain buried in Reichenbach with our missing corpses, my boy. Sigerson will do for me – John Sigerson. And you?"

A nom de guerre? Watson thought of the single dullest fellow he'd ever run into in the Army. "Sacker. Ormond Sacker." With the name covering him like an armour breastplate, he already felt himself steeling for what lay ahead for both of them.

The warmth in his friend's voice made him all the surer that he'd chosen the right path away from the fearsome waterfall. "Sleep, Sacker old man. We must be gone before sunrise."


End file.
